#81: notes on developing a civic heart
an updated view on news habits and citizenship
Good morning,
Shortly after the inauguration, I did an interview for WDET about how we should approach reading the news in a time like this and what I felt has changed in our media consumption experiences in the last 10 years.
It was a hard one, and I've been thinking about it ever since. I first began writing about our relationship with news 10 years ago. What are my basic principles today? Have they changed in the last decade?
Yes and no.
Here’s what I feel has changed:
The ways in which news interrupts our lives has increased. And we are getting more news than ever from non-journalists. Ten years ago, it was hard to have conversations with people about the need to “redefine the term news” because we were still entrenched in a media system where journalists or publishers acted as gatekeepers, albeit, they were losing their gates quickly. Now, it’s a Wild West.
In the past, I focused mostly on how we consume news because it felt like we were still living in a system of passive receipt. But these days, I’m finding myself more interested in what guides our choices—and how we can live inside systems that are breaking down while building new ones.
Here’s how I would have approached news consumption then:
Cut the poison: Limiting consumption is a good start if you’re a scroller and just need to put some boundaries in place. But it doesn’t add value on its own.
Add value: Needs-based consumption is the only way to get something out of what you’re consuming. A learning mindset + self-understanding are superpowers.
But I think there is a new dimension that has grown up alongside me in the past decade:
Develop your civic heart: Over the past decade, I’ve come to see that beyond habits and limits, we need a moral posture to guide our choices around information—and that posture is what I call a “civic heart.”
What does it mean to develop a civic heart?
I first came across the phrase in the book “Risking Old Age in America,” a 1990 examination of the social security benefits system. (Incidentally, Margolis is still writing and now on substack, which I just found out.)
The introduction is titled “The Civic Heart,” and in it he wrote:
The social commentator Alvin L. Schorr has noted a paradox of human nature—namely that "we measure decency by our immediate experience and activity but often lack the imagination to project it into policies or administration." The upshot is all too familiar: "Citizens who are good neighbors and give time to charitable activities . . . can also, in concert, behave brutally."
We could say when we behave that way we lack a civic heart. As with social imagination, a civic heart has little to do with one's personal code of behavior; it has more to do with W. H. Auden's sense of pooled "love":
Hunger allows no choice
To the citizen or the police;
We must love one another or die.
("September 1, 1939")
The thought resonated immediately because it feels very similar to the Buddhist concept of “imaginative empathy,” which I’ve written about before, and in short, refers to one of 3 pre-requisites for global citizenship, it’s own kind of civic love: the wisdom to perceive interconnection, the courage not to deny difference and the imaginative empathy to understand others.
It took me a long time to find these qualities in the media world, and when I did it was almost always in a journalist—as human being—but rarely in our collective institutions.
Each time I did encounter someone who seemed to embody this civic heart, I felt heartened, inspired and moved to know them. Eventually, as happens with changemakers, I realized how connected they were to each other and found myself in the company of what is now a brilliant, growing network of co-conspirators in the effort to build institutions that embody the civic heart as well.
News Futures is a network of civic practitioners—journalists, researchers, designers, organizers and more—working to build resilient, people-first news ecosystems. Its principles are:
News must evolve. This work requires the creation of new journalism practices and local news models that are more representative of, responsive to, and accountable to community needs. We support a paradigm shift in how news and public information is produced [7], distributed, experienced [8], and funded [9].
Everyone has a role to play. As we build this future, we acknowledge the media industry's history of misrepresentation and exclusion [10]. People who have been excluded from and harmed by the news media must have a reparative role in shaping what the future of local news looks like [11].
Storytelling should unite. News should not be a tool for domination, division, or oppression. We must take responsibility for the power of the narratives we produce and consciously adopt care practices that generate hope, restoration, and healing in our communities [12].
Collaboration is required. Serving all members of a community requires coordination and collaboration across a broader sector of community stewards. We are forming networks of ‘do-ers’—allies who reject exclusivity and gatekeeping in favor of collective power.
A vibrant civic life is our goal. The newsroom as a center of corporate interest is no substitute for news as a center of community engagement [13]. We stand for news and information that supports a more liberatory, joyful, and equipped civic life.
(You can read the charter become a signatory here).
Captains never get seasick
People often ask journalists: how do you not get overwhelmed/burnt out from the news cycle? From a world on fire? From having to hold the weight of our humanity baser impulses and corruptions in your mind at all times, and translate it for the rest of us?
Everyone will answer differently. Most of the time, as a news consumer, I find that tempering those macro realities with goodness of real people and communities is the best balm.
But from what I can see, the people I most admire, the ones who don’t lose it, are captains.
In a Buddhist story I love, the analogy of seafaring is used to point out that as a passenger, it is easy to get seasick, but captains never do. Therefore, to weather life’s storms, we ought to be captains.
I can’t help but relate this to our posture toward civic life. Even in the stormiest seas, like today’s news cycle, I think there is space within us to hone our ability to listen, to hold space, to gather people, to lay down the front and to act.
And in turn, the grit and courage required to do these things prevents seasickness.
So, today’s prompt is a remix from the archive, exploring how to shift from passive to active citizenship.
🔍 Prompt: What does it mean for us to show up as citizens—versus commentators—in our own news ecosystems?
Read the full resource → Commentary vs. Citizenship
Inside you’ll find:
Notes on the difference between commentary and citizenship
A prompt to define your own values-driven news practice
Three books for further inspiration
Happy Saturday,
Jihii